Hola my darling hearts!!!!
So! My heart has been ahankering for a garden office to work on my beautiful goddess business & have a beautiful creative, soulful sanctuary.
And then my darling friend Jewel said…
Hey! We have some old caravans from the nudist colony next door! Want one?
And I was all
OMG YES YES YES!!! I WANT NUDIST COLONY VAN.
It was the best birthday present ever.
And now the restoration project begins… my “largest” creative project to date!!!!
I’ve been documenting the restoration stages along the way since it began five days ago, and thought it would be really delicious to share with you.
THIS IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN!!!!
Day 1
14 November = Caravanny arrived this afternoon on a tip tray truck. Truck driver’s name was Chris, which I thought was synchronicious. He thought I was a bit cuckoo for being SO excited about an old caravan, but he doesn’t see what I see. Where he sees green, I see RAINBOWS! Where he sees caravan, I see SANCTUARY.
I’m going to keep gutting it until it’s one big beautiful space I think. And then just have a desk & a couch in there. Or an armchair. WOO.
This will officially count as my before shots for the transformation process!
It’s totally filthy after living under rainforest trees on its own for five years, but underneath it all, I see amazing retro lines. It’s going to be beyooootiful!
It’s been place next to our car for the time being. We’ve got a huge old mango tree stump in our backyard that needs removing, and then we’ll relocate it into our backyard.
It was really, really strange having a huge new thang arrive in our space. Over the last year of living here in this cottage, I’ve worked really hard on cleansing this land & home & making it our own, so to have this old caravan with its strange new energy was a bit overwhelming.
The first thing I did was start with sacred space clearing it. I smudged it and light incense all around it. Then washed the windows clean with vinegar, lavendar oil & some Australian Bushflower Purifying Essence.
I totally believe that with sacred space clearing, there needs to be a blend of both physical clearing (decluttering and cleaning) and spiritual energy clearing (in the kit, I teach about the six principle ways I do this).
Then I set about clearing all the crap out from inside.
There’s a LOT of it. Including belongings from the last dude who used the van in 2006 on the nudist colony.
Apparently he was “Vladamir” from Woy Woy. CLASSIC. It feeeeeeels like a nudist name ya know?
Pretty sure this is where my desk will be… soooo much window space!!!! ♥
And then I got to the linen cupboard (pictured on the right, with all the old blankets and sheets in it). And I started hauling stuff out until I was all
“Hey look at that roll of rope! That has a beautiful pattern like snakeskin!”
And then I was all
“OMFG!!!! IT IS A SNAKE!!!!!”
Needless to say, some battles took place.
(FYI: we live in an area with buttloads of poisonous snakes, so we don’t take chances unless we are 100% sure it’s a tree snake.)
Neither of us were victorious, and we returned to our own corners to regroup.
I’ve mothballed the buggery out of it, and prayed to the spirit of the snake that it finds a lovely new home away from Creative Caravan & our Mermaid Cottage. There’s some lovely mango trees a few houses over…
Next steps = hoping snakey will bugger off tonight. Otherwise tomorrow I’ll check in & see what needs to happen. Maybe a visit from my dad or our farm “snake dog” Vinnie?
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!!!!!
I’m SO EXCITED!!!! Helllllooooooooo renovator’s delight & dream come true!!!!
Day 2
I had dreams about snakes all last night & felt really unsettled. I’m hoping Monsieur Snakie took the opportunity to relocate last night. But to help the process along, I got a big stick and whacked all around the shell of the caravan. More impetus for Monsieur to head for a mango tree in a paddock somewhere…
After playing Wack-a-caravan, I did was smudge our whole yard. Feels like with the arrival of the caravan there came all this old energy to shift in order for it to live in harmony with our energy here. Maybe that’s what that snake was about!
This is our rainbow-painted bird bath. Obviously we haven’t had much rain lately. It’s starting to become a bit of a “treasures” bowl… and it’s where I burn big wands of temple incense to cleanse out our backyard.
Ostara, of course, was muchos helpful in the smudging process.
In other smudging related news, I’m out of sage, and my local sage supplier is out of town. Hoping upon hope that I’ll get some delivered in the mail this week. Really need sage’s awesome, powerful cleansing, grounding and protection qualities to keep cleansing the van.
I dumped a whole bottle of space clearing essence over it yesterday too to help the process along. Feels like it’s helping the van integrate into the energy of our space.
Ooooh! Bonus suncatcher in the window! Think I might keepsies it!
In other groundbreaking news, I cleaned the windows! Weeeooo! Nothing like a good wash over (with vinegar, lavender essential oil & aus bush flower essences purifying blend). Love a bit of clarity.
FYI: This whole renovation thing is like big-time soul work.
Oh holy (holey) caravan.
Felt really overwhelmed & frustrated today by the project & all its components. I want to move in like YESTERDAY.
But first things first: I really need someone to help me pull out the rubbish inside & desnake the place. My Daddy-o was going to help today but couldn’t make it. Am so hoping Dad can come help tomorrow afternoon.
(Chris is looking after Ostara while I do it – both of us can’t be doing it at once. Plus, he’s not quite as experienced around snakes as I am.)
Once that’s done I’ll give it a cleanup inside, we’ll aqua blast the exterior shell, and I’ll start lovingly encouraging my daddy with great force to help us pull out the old mango stump in our backyard that’s been eaten by termites.
THEN when that’s done, we’ll blow up the caravan tires, work out how we’re going to push it into the backyard, and deposit it into it’s resting place overlooking the garden.
THEN painting begins.
Phew.
I did have a whine tonight to hunky love about feeling overwhelmed about the project, and how I was all “WHAT WAS I THINKING TAKING ON ANOTHER HUGE PROJECT WHEN I HAVE SO MUCH ELSE TO DO AND NO SPARE TIME?”
And he was all
“Stop whining, everything’s fine, all in good time, keep focussed on your work, the caravan is just an extra fun thing, keep it simple, keep getting inspired by ideas of what you want to create in the space, don’t worry be happy.”
And I was all
“God you’re hot.”
Also!!!! We had a girly shopping day with my sissy, and she bought me the bestest birthday present ever… tubs & tubs of rainbow paint for the caravan! I think we’ll end up having majority of it turquoise with some delicious accents. YAY!!! Thanks sissy!!!!
Day 3!
Day 3 of Creative Caravan Project. We pumped up tires with a mini compressor & surprisingly, they stayed up. Woo! Hallelujah! Progress!
My Dad called to let me know he couldn’t come in to help me de-snake the caravan, so my hunky love decided to do a “Caravan of Courage” and do it for me instead.
And double Hurrah! No snakes were found! I think Monsieur Snakey has found a happy new home to live… away from us.
The Official Snake Hunting Outfit.
Me & Ostara & Charlie were the bestest de-snaking spectators ever. Miss Angel was too busy sitting on a silk pillow inside reading the latest edition of “Pansy Dog Weekly.”
Oh and FYI! See what Ostara’s doing in the picture? She decided Charlie needed water so made three trips into the house to find a little container, fill it with water & bring it out to him. (And put his nose in it to help.)
She’s pretty much the awesomest ever.
We make fantastic spectators.
Aaaaan apart from that, no other caravan renovations happened besides the tire pumping & desnaking today.
And that’s okay. I was a bit too buggered to do much renovating work today – I was awake quite a lot last night comforting a teething Ostara.
Judging by the stream of tired mama faces and teary baby faces on Instagram today, there must be an international endemic today of teething.
Besides, I had other Important Plans today besides renovate. Like hang at my favorite cafe with my favorite people.
My beautiful goddess girlfriends all got me the most amazing birthday treasures – nearly all of them bought before I got the caravan, and they are just PERFECT for the caravan!!! Amazing how it all works out!!! A really sweet felted turquoise love ornament. Happy dreamy sigh. Thanks Avonleigh!
Another totally Creative Caravan perfect ornament… a dreamy turquoise bazaar light. Thanks Gorgeous Mirella!!!
And ANOTHER one… Flower fairy lights from Jewel.
Seriously, that’s all the interior design stuff taken care of… I don’t want too much in there, just a little splash of turquoise & glitter… mostly just space to create and BE. I feel so blessed that these treasures all came into my life at just the right time to adorn the Creative Caravan!
Day 4!!!
Today’s a day of interior decoration coming together. It’s all coming together in the most magical and serendipitous of ways without even trying. My order fromravenmoonmagic.blogspot.com arrived today. I ordered a heap of her beautiful prints & banners last week without even knowing what they were for really… and now they’ve arrived, I have a Creative Caravan that needs decorating! And they’ll be perfect.
After thinking it would be a quiet day on the renovation front, it ended up being a super MASSIVE one! Ostara & Chris had a late afternoon nap, & I’d finished the work I needed to do for the day, so I thought to myself “Oooh! Caravan time!”
Obv, I dressed appropriately.
I tore some old shelves out.
This is the part I started working on.
All the stuff I pulled out. Tops effort.
What it looked like after the clean out.
Tearing everything back to the shell.
Oh & this? This is Vladamir’s “nature collection”.
Next thing to go? This sink.
Next stage of stuff to pull out…
And YAY!!!!! My Centaur Daddy came!!! SOOOO Happy to see him!!!
He delivered the next part of the puzzle… a gurney/aquablaster to clean off the outside from all the mould & bird poo & dirt. Yay aqua blaster!
And Daddy-o teaching me how to use it.
DUDE. Look how clean it makes it. (Green is where the water blaster has been… brown/black is where it has yet to clean!)
Look at ze difference!
I did about an hour or more of cleaning with it & got three sides finished.
One more to go, plus the roof.
But look! A lovely AFTER shot… looking SO much cleaner!
Why hello there clean caravan!
WOOOO! Look how clean she is looking in comparison to the beginning! Woah! It’ll be much easier to paint now… can you imagine it all gorgeous and turquoise?
And OMG!!! GUESS WHAT??? I could see peeks of the old paint job underneath… guess what colour it used to be? Turquoise of course!!!! MEANT TO BE!!!! Restoring her to her former glory!!!!!
Day 5
Just a couple of odd jobs done on the Creative Caravan… we spent most of the day hanging out & celebrating my love’s birthday.
Have been needing to get a mini skip for all of the rubbish we are pulling out of the caravan (the stuff that isn’t salvageable & reusable). Instead we found these awesome skip bags at Bunnings. We got the largest size… will let you know how it goes.
Hunky husband cut all the wires that were dangling out of the holes at the back. Will spakfilla these babies up & seal them before we paint.
Before shot… this is next to the door. A smashed window & exposed light bulb.
After cleanup. Removed all the glass shards & lightbulb from them. We were thinking about buying a new window to replace, but Chris made the awesome suggestion we get some perspex instead, and paint it like a stained glass window, and cut it to shape. And I think we’ll turn the light hole into a moon sculpture. WOO! We are really thinking outside the box now.
Ostara peering through the front hole of the caravan. She is SO wanting to go play in there, but it’s still too much of a hazard in there just yet. Soon my darling, soon!
In other exciting news, we went to the Caravan Centre today to have a look at parts. And as we were there, we realised that we’d really like to make everything from reusable stuff as possible… salvage from what we already have, what we can find secondhand, what my dad might have. We’ve always been a bit afraid of being *that* handy & non-linear & non-pre-packaged, ya know? But this caravan project is giving up SO much creative courage. It’s AMAZING. Like I seriously think we can do anything. Oh & Caravan Centre lady was TOTALLY beautiful to talk to… we ended up talking for ages about going through dark nights of the soul.
Also bought husband a jigsaw for his birthday, he wants to try his hand at carving stuff out of wood. Rock on, hunky husband. And again, at Bunnings, had a totally amazing synchronicious connection with our sales person… this time about Egypt & hieroglyphs he has seen there of kangaroos… that were exactly the same as ones he has seen in NT. It was totally blow-out-amazing. A really beautiful guy.
Feels like the Celestine Prophecy is at work in our lives.
Tore down the old tattered sail as well this afternoon. Had to wangle a fair bit to get it out… it’s been stuck in its line for a few years!
Ta da!!! The outside shell is starting to look a lot cleaner & more workable!!! Amazing!!
Before/After
Five days in, I thought it would be fun to celebrate with a little before/after montage.
There’s still so much to do, but let’s celebrate the buggery out of where we have been!!!!
All in all, I’m completely in awe of this project & where it has taken us.
I’m going to be so honest with you:
I have never, ever seen myself as a “handy” person. Nor my love. We’re more the “make art out of our hands, not fix stuff” kinda peeps.
We’ve never renovated before beyond painting.
The most we’ve done is put together a bookshelf from Ikea (and even then it was accompanied by a fair amount of swearing).
But for some reason, this project?
I just felt so called to it.
Like yes, we can do it. Let’s give it a go.
And I am growing and learning and finding new skills every single day. It’s amazing.
Sometimes it scares the shit out of me. Some days this past week I’ve said to Chris:
Maybe we should have just taken this thing to the dump! What was I thinking?
And he just reminds me that everything is going to be okay.
I try not to look too far ahead. I try not to walk in fear.
I loved this post of Penelope’s this morning about her husband & a friend diving into new passions of photography & a farm. It struck a bell inside me.
I put my gaze on the horizon, to where I want to be, and I walk there. I don’t get distracted by other possibilities.
I guess that’s my secret of everything really.
I know what I want with my life. And I’m bloody stubborn about getting there. I put all my faith, hope & vision into where I want to be, and I drive all my energy towards getting there.
I love every single day & every single moment as much as I can. I enjoy the heck out of wherever I am. And I’m fiercely committed to having faith in my dreams.
I’m going to make it happen. I’m going to make it happen.
all the love in the world,
